New Truths
by Sever13
Summary: Everyone takes for granted that Draco will join his father as a Death Eater, but what would happens if he doesn't take the Dark Mark? How will Lucius react? And where will Draco go? Rating for language and gratuitous violence.
1. Beginnings

DISCLAIMER: This is just the usual disclaimer, all of the stuff you recognize from the books belongs to J. K. Rowling and associates, while all of the new stuff belongs to me. This includes the plot, any new characters, and revision of or additions to existing names. If I have used something from a story already posted on then please notify me and I shall respond accordingly.

This is my first fic, and I realize that some parts of it will be agonizingly lame. Please leave constructive criticism and any suggestions that you may have. I will respond to flames with venom and spiteful language, so spare yourselves the trouble, and go waste your time reading something else.

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Chapter 1

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The summer before his seventh and final year at Hogwarts, Draconis Lucifer Malfoy, usually referred to as Draco, was about to have an unusual summer. 

His father had made the mistake of beating him one too many times, and the proverbial last straw had broken the proverbial camel's back. Draco had, until recently, revered his father. Lucius Aden Malfoy was everything that Draco had ever wanted to be. But something had nagged at him during his sixth year of schooling at Hogwarts. His eyes had finally opened to the lack of difference between muggleborns and purebloods. His favorite Hogwarts professor, Severus Snape, had pleaded, actually begging Draco not to join the ranks of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters. This desperate behavior had shocked Draco into questioning things he had always before held as absolute truths.

Draco had run away from home, away from his father, the Dark Lord, away from all he had ever known.

Which is how a bruised and bloody blonde found himself in a dark alleyway, with the rain washing away the pain and the blood. By an ironic stroke of luck, his plea for somewhere safe had him apparated right across the street from a non-descript 24-hour Muggle clinic. He managed to walk in and attract attention before he blacked out, crumpling to the floor in a steadily growing pool of blood..

'How undignified,' was his last coherent thought before he succumbed to the darkness tugging at his mind and collapsed into sweet oblivion.

When he awoke, a short and somewhat pudgy blonde nurse had been studying his face, and she started backwards when his eyes flew open.

Though he felt like lashing out with a snappy remark about her gawking at him like an animal from a zoo, all he could command his tongue to form was an indecipherable grunt. He was too tired to even sneer. The nurse, rather pretty in a plump, homely way, smiled a knowing smile and said almost mockingly, "How are you feeling, dearie?"

Now the urge to sneer was so strong his lip actually twitched.

The nurse, still uncomfortably close to his face, noticed this movement and raised a questioning eyebrow. Draco decided not to dignify this silent question with an answer.

The plump nurse pulled back and helped him sit up. Looking around, he noticed how many machines he was hooked up to. The Muggle needles he saw in his arms gave him a sudden urge to shudder and rip them out.

The nurse suddenly decided to start talking, "My name is Sherry Everett, your personal nurse for the duration of your stay."

Draco looked at her and he finally coaxed his mouth to ask the questions that had been swooping around in his head since he awoke.

"Where am I? How long have I been here? What day is it? When can I lea…"

"Well!" Ms. Everett exclaimed, "Slow down there, poppet!" Draco winced at the pet name.

She paused a moment, as though remembering the questions and the order in which they were asked, then started spewing out information.

"You are in Kadlec Hospital, 2375 West Farthing St. about ten blocks from where you," there was a brief pause in her speech, "checked in at the 24-hour clinic. You've been here for almost an entire week, and the date is July 21, 2003."

Draco looked at the plump nurse dumbly for a moment while the information soaked in.

Then, in a small, very unMalfoy-ish voice, Draco asked, "A whole week?"

"_Almost_ a whole week, 6 and a half days, to be exact." Sherry retorted. A shadow passed over her previously merry features as she started checking over his remaining wounds. Draco surveyed the room he was in. He appeared to be in a solitary ward, his bed being the only one. The room was small, with a window covering roughly half of the wall to his right. The walls were an indefinable shade of pale green that matched that of St. Mungo's. 'A disturbing coincidence,' Draco thought detachedly. The door was made of a strange material that he dismissed as some kind of metal, and was painted white. Draco saw also that the locks were all accessible from the outside only.

It wasn't until then that Draco noticed his lack of depth perception.

"May I see a mirror Ms. Everett?"

"Just Sherry, if you please."

"Ah, Then may I see a mirror, …Ms. Sherry?"

Sherry hesitated, and then hustled out, returning a few minutes later with a mumbled, "You may not want to see this."

It was then that Draco started to worry. He usually had his wounds healed magically, leaving little traces of scars, but this time he had been treated with Muggle technology, meaning everything would stay. Permanently. He snatched the mirror as soon as it was within reach, and whipped it up to his face. When the mirror reflected his face properly, Draco almost dropped it. He stared numbly at the pale face staring back at him. His long hair was loose and framed his drained face; the vague shape of his family crest, ('Fa-Lucius' ring,' he thought, correcting himself with a sneer) marred his right cheek, but across his left eye was the most shocking discovery. A horribly thin scar snaked from about the middle of his forehead down _through _his left eye and down to trace his left cheekbone. His once proud silver eye was now a dull gray with a milky white iris. He suppressed a shudder and examined the rest of his injuries. He had scars all up and down his chest, his back as well, had he been able to see it. Greenish tinges that signified nearly healed bruises littered his torso. He knew what his arms and legs were like, having been able to see them during and after his beatings.

Draco suddenly felt the urge to rip something, or a certain someone, apart. Since Lucius was not within reaching distance, Draco flung the mirror with a deadly accuracy at a cute poster depicting a nurse hugging a young child. The mirror broke into millions of pieces and one piece managed to imbed itself between the child and the nurse. Sherry blanched as she watched this episode, clearly frightened. Draco turned to her; fury etched into his remaining aristocratic features, and saw the fear on her face. Her face reminded him of his mother in an odd way, though his mother had been tall, slender, and terribly aristocratic. Narcissa had died at Lucius' hands a year prior, and Draco immediately blinked away stinging tears at the memory of her piercing screams, feeling more like his wretched excuse for a father than he ever had before, and decided to apologize.

Draco smoothed his expression into a calm, collected appearance. His endless training and drilling in the ways of wizarding aristocracy were the only thing for which Draco was thankful to Lucius. Draco concentrated his thoughts into relevant and nonrelevant, discarding the nonrelevant thoughts for later brooding.

"I am sorry, Ms. Sherry," spoke a now outwardly calm Draco, "I did not mean to frighten you."

"Nonsense," said a thoroughly shaken nurse, she recovered quickly, "I will bring you lunch in two hours, if you need anything before then, press the button on the bedside table." With that, she turned around and walked towards the door. She paused at the door, and turned around before she was all the way through the door, she said steadily, "If you need anything, you can talk to me."

Draco nodded, poker-faced, at the kind offer and resisted the impulse to smile at her in gratitude. Sherry nodded back with a motherly smile and hurried off to another patient's bedside.

After Sherry had left a shock jolted his befuddled mind as he realized what he had just done. Being kind to a Muggle? What had happened to his Malfoy instincts? Draco openly shuddered at the thought of being related to that monster, the bastard that had led him to this degradation. In that moment, Draco silently vowed to do everything he could to bring down Lucius Aden Malfoy.

Now Draco resigned himself to watch the doctors and nurses and the occasional visitor flit past his window. He mused about his father, mother, money, school, and all other wholly depressing topics that he could think of. He thought about Quidditch, and wondered if he would ever play again. He thought about how he would find his godfather after he got out of this mess. Then he thought about how he was thinking too much, and in doing this Draco exhausted his tired brain and fell asleep.


	2. Hospitals and Surprises

Welcome to another unimpressive chapter of New Truths. This chapter focuses more on the human part of Draco and less on his sad circumstances.

Thank you's to those who reviewed.

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is still not mine, while all of the new stuff is still mine.

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Boredom.

It surrounded him, permeating the very fibers of his being. Draco's mind was screaming at him to do something interesting. He was still too weak to eat enough, so he was hooked to an IV. He longed to walk, to run, to fly his broom, he would even settle for scrubbing cauldrons. At least that would provide some mental stimulation. And he had only been awake for three days.

The door clicked open, admitting Sherry into the room. She was wheeling something strange in with her. It looked like a spindly metal coat hanger. Draco eyed the mysterious apparatus with wary curiosity. He had never trusted Muggle "technology", as they called it, a sentiment that had been drilled into him since he was born into a pureblood family.

"What is this contraption you have brought me, Ms. Sherry?" Draco said with as much dignity as he could muster. Sherry giggled like a little girl, as she did whenever he addressed her. At first he was annoyed by her antics, but he refused to call her by her first name alone, and now found it quite amusing.

"This, my dear sir, is freedom on wheels," she said with a smirk.

"Is that so?" Draco said, repressing a grin. He secretly liked Sherry Everett very much. She was the kind of woman who just grows onto a person, until they can't imagine living without her. She reminded Draco very strongly of someone, but he could never remember who it was.

"Yes, sir, this is a rolling IV holder, giving it's bearer the freedom to walk around and enjoy the sights and sounds of the rest of the hospital," Sherry managed a straight face during this short speech, but her homely face erupted into a broad grin as soon as she finished speaking. She always addressed him as "my dear sir" in retaliation to his formal manner of addressing her, even though she had dragged his first name, along with a false last name, out of him the first day he awoke.

In his three days awake, Draco had learned much about the current state of his health. Nothing was broken except for a few ribs, as he had administered several healing charms before he ran away, which made him quite able to move about, albeit painfully. Sherry, taking for granted that Draco wanted to regain his mobility, was already moving his IV bag to the hook on the rolling rack. Draco gladly complied with Sherry's instructions, submitting to her fussing over his garment, or lack thereof, if you asked Draco's personal opinion. No one ever did, but that didn't stop Draco from maintaining his disparaging view of the drafty smock.

As the cheerful nurse finished her work and stepped back, she looked over her blonde patient with a discerning eye. After several minutes of warnings and insistence on taking it easy, she ushered a somewhat wobbly wizard out into the hall.

Draco was polite and reserved on the outside, but inside, he was crying to run and jump around. As soon as he was out of sight of Sherry, a crafty grin lit his face and he started walking much faster than she had previously advised, almost breaking into an undignified jog. He spun around, using the pole of the IV holder as a dance partner. He never realized what a strange character he was, his sinisterly scarred visage contrasting so with his childish actions. He felt so free, no worries, no father hell-bent on killing him, no Dark Lord forcing him to do unsavory tasks, just him and the IV rack, dancing the day away. He continued this way until his ribs began to protest, ordering him to slow down and walk more carefully.

Now, Draco had never liked being alone. Solitude was very valuable in small doses, but he had always been a people person, befriending anyone his father allowed. Without the previous restrictions, Draco befriended two of the other long term patients. His new friends included a six year old girl in the cancer ward and a boy a few years younger than him who had been hit by a car while riding his bike, and had broken an arm and both legs. Draco especially pitied the last of his friends, since it would be years until he could ride his beloved bicycle again. Draco often smuggled the boy, Thomas Dean, extra chocolate pudding. They often talked until curfew, doing what, if they had been girls, would have been called gossiping. The young girl in the cancer ward had a major operation, and when she woke up, she found Draco and Thomas's smiling faces surrounded by flowers and balloons that Draco had charmed out of a kind nurse down the hall. The young girl, Marilyn, was so cute, despite her lack of hair and shrunken appearance; she had supreme power over the two boys. She even convinced them to have a tea party with her and her new teddy bear, which had been supplied by her adorable parents. They often came and sat with her after work hours, kissing her newly grown mop of hair.

One evening, they cornered Draco after they had left Marilyn's side for the night. Their apprehensive faces caught his attention as they spoke to him.

"Erm, Draco, right?" the father asked, looking deep into his eyes. This made Draco acutely uncomfortable, but he knew he had to stare back, for some inexplicable reason that had forced its way into his mind.

"Well, uhm, the doctors just informed us that Mary doesn't…" he choked for a moment here, and the mother burst into tears. Her sobbing made Draco pale, he knew that something was very wrong with his little friend just from that action. The father cleared his throat and bravely continued, "Mary doesn't have long to live, and we just wanted to thank you for making her life so pleasant. She has told us all about how you and the other boy play with her and talk with her."

Draco's face cleared itself of what little color it had left, which wasn't very much to begin with.

"Not long? What does that mean?" he asked in a weak yet groomed voice. He always reverted back to his aristocratic training when he was upset, regardless of the cause.

The mother wailed, "One month, that's all the bastards gave my daughter! One month! She might not even make it to her seventh birthday!" With that outburst, she buried her face in her husband's shoulder again, seeking a safety from fate that his damp joint could not offer.

True to the doctor's word, Marilyn passed within a month of the tearful encounter after curfew. Marilyn died two days after her birthday, after the best party of her short life. She was buried in the new dress her parents had given her, a Barbie watch that she had always wanted from Thomas, and a small picture that Draco had taken of her and put in a beautiful frame. Draco had made two extra copies of the photo, and kept one in his wallet after gifting the other to the distraught parents.

The day after the funeral, Draco was officially released from the hospital. During his time at the hospital, a full two months due to him tearing his left lung on a broken rib while he was playing hospital football with Thomas, he had become very close to the nurse, Sherry Everett. When she handed him his "freedom slip", she pulled him into a hug. He was still depressed about Marilyn, and now he had nowhere to go. He couldn't go back into the wizarding world; they would surely recognize him in no time. As he voiced these fears to Sherry, she laughed and invited him to stay with her and work at the hospital. As it turned out, Sherry was a squib from a very old pureblood family. She would never tell him which family, but he was sure he would find out soon. Sherry had given him his wand and explained to him her lineage and he had told her everything. He gladly accepted her offer.

He had started living with Sherry and was planning on starting work the next week when Sherry came home one evening with an apprehensive look on her face.

"Draco, pack your things, I'm going to a family reunion and taking you with me," she said with far more resolution than her face suggested.

"Why?" Draco asked petulantly, jokingly acting like a five year old, as he had so often done with Marilyn.

Sherry laughed, smacked Draco onthe handand several hours and wand waves later, they were standing in front of a rickety house. Surely, Draco thought,magic was all that kept it together. The surprisingly sturdy front door opened and all sorts of sights and smells and sounds greeted the pair on the stoop. Draco was taken aback by the woman who was currently hugging Sherry. They could have been twins. Draco struggled to breathe as he recognized…

"Mrs. Weasley?" he said disbelievingly. She looked at him for the first time, soaking in his entire scarred appearance. She smiled at him before a worried expression overcast her motherly features.

"This will take some explaining, won't it, Sherry, dear?"

Sherry turned to her worried ex-patient and said, "Draco, meet my sister, Molly Everett Weasley."


End file.
